


Your Place in Blue

by triggerswaggiehavoc



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, Nude Modeling, painter DK
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-08-09 04:37:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7787053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/triggerswaggiehavoc/pseuds/triggerswaggiehavoc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some people would be overjoyed at the chance to work with a life model. Seokmin is not one of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Place in Blue

There comes a time in every man’s life when he must paint the likeness of someone who is stark naked. This statement is, of course, wildly untrue; saying “all men” is an outright lie, and saying “most men” is a very dubious extrapolation. Even “many men” is more than likely too generous. Nonetheless, this is the statement with which Lee Seokmin consoles himself when the instructor of his art class at the community center announces that they will be having a session with a life model the next week.

It’s not like he’s required to show up; since it’s not a class at the university, it isn’t as if his grade will be docked over absence. Truthfully, he doesn’t even need to go in the first place. His mom told him it would be a good idea to do _something_ to make friends and pushed him to sign up for a community art class, but he ended up making some pals through the intramural basketball team, so he doesn’t really need to go anymore, except now he feels obligated due to force of habit and the expectation held by the other participators in the class that he will be there. Though just this once, he might feign ill.

The painting of a naked body isn’t really what makes him uncomfortable so much as the fact that the naked body can watch you while you paint it. Seokmin doesn’t like to be watched while he paints because he gets this weird look on his face like he’s trying really hard to smile without showing his teeth; if the other people in class are looking at him instead of their own work for some reason, it’s not a big deal because he won’t really see them doing it, but if the subject he’s painting decides it wants to look at him, he’s doomed.

Not to mention he’s not nearly as confident in painting people as he is with still life. Apples are all more or less the same no matter how many you look at, so if you fuck up the apple you’re painting really bad, most won’t be able to distinguish at first glance the difference between your fucked up apple and the one you were meant to be painting. People aren’t apples, though. People have a basic structure that they mostly all share, but almost none of them look similar enough to say they look the same, so if you fuck up the person you’re painting, they become immediately unrecognizable as who they’re supposed to be. That doesn’t only go for the face, either. The more of someone you have to draw, the more chances you have to fuck up, and a full naked body presents the greatest possible number of opportunities.

When the instructor says they’re not sure yet what the gender of the model will be, Seokmin prays it’ll be a girl. Girls have soft bodies that flow nicely and go well with the strokes of a paintbrush, and more importantly, they have bodies he’s not attracted to. If it’s a girl, he can just appreciate the way her form curves from an aesthetic point of view instead of worrying about his eyes popping too much when he sees the subtle muscular definition if it’s a man. If it’s a really old guy, though, he’ll be fine. The wrinkles will kick his ass, but he’d much rather have his ass kicked than fall in love for an hour on Wednesday night. He hopes against hope that an extremely old man will pull through to kick his ass.

“I hope it’s some super hot guy,” Hansol says at basketball practice the next week, mere hours before the doomed art class. “I hope you, like, drool or something when he takes off his robe and he makes eye contact with you while you try to wipe it up.”

“Why are you like this?” Seokmin sighs tiredly, doing his best to ignore the seed of dread that’s been planted in his gut. He dribbles the ball lethargically, distinctly making sure to bounce it at a quicker pace every time Hansol reaches for it so he can’t actually grab it, fingernails just brushing against the rubber.

“Somebody’s gotta do it,” he grins, huffing after the fourth or fifth time the ball evades his grasp. “Dude, give me the ball.”

“Take back what you said about me drooling,” he hisses through a blinding grin, and Hansol misses the ball by a hair once more.

“I can take it back all you want,” Hansol grunts, hand gliding through the air, once again missing the object of his aim. His coordination is astoundingly poor for someone who practices almost daily. “That doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen, though.” The sound of Seungcheol yelling from a few yards away shocks Seokmin out of his tricky rhythm, and Hansol scoops up the ball with a loving grin.

“Quit fucking around over there!” Seungcheol bellows as he walks toward them. It would almost be scary if his voice didn’t have that lilt it gets whenever he’s joking. “This is _practice_ , not… _not_ practice.” He loses confidence and volume as he finishes, eyebrows pulling together uncertainly. As always, a man of words.

“Chillax,” Hansol groans, and Seokmin can’t believe he still says that word on a regular basis when the nineties have long been over. “We were just talking about the supremely sexy nude male model Seokmin’s going to have to paint tonight at his community center art class.” Seokmin opens his mouth to correct the stream of lies that Hansol’s never seems to stop spouting, but Seungcheol is already letting out a low whistle. He stops just near enough to swipe the ball from Hansol's inattentive hands and swirl it around atop his palm.

“How scandalous,” he muses. “Are you sure you’re gonna make it, buddy? You’re not exactly known for your pristine composure when encountering sexy men for the first time, and you’re probably worse when they’re naked.” Seokmin is momentarily too offended by the jab to clear up the lie Hansol has propagated, and when he remembers that he still needs to do that, Seungcheol is already talking again. “Anyway, the basketball court is no place to talk about your wet daydreams. Do that later.” Seokmin sighs in resignation as he watches Seungcheol’s receding back and thinks to himself how relieved he is Seungcheol isn’t a nude model. An ass like that could make him swear off painting forever, but he doesn’t need to tell Seungcheol that.

Evening comes a little quicker than Seokmin wants it to, and before he has the chance to save himself, he’s on the bus heading toward the community center, unable to shake the sinking feeling that Hansol’s wishes will come true. He’s particularly fixated on the drooling accusation. It’s not like he’s notorious for drooling over handsome men, and frankly, he’s offended that Hansol would imply such a thing. Nevertheless, there seem to be a great deal more attractive guys than usual boarding the bus this evening, and every time one does, Seokmin reminds himself that he doesn’t drool.

One particularly dashing fellow bumps into Seokmin as he sits down, shoulder ramming directly into Seokmin’s as he slides into the adjacent seat. “Sorry about that,” the guy says in a voice like honey, flashing a dazzling smile.

“I don’t drool,” Seokmin says so immediately and so naturally that for a solid minute, both of them are almost convinced it was an appropriate response. They realize soon enough, however, that it was not, and Seokmin is thankful to every god he can recall the name of that he’s getting off at the next stop.

By the looks of things, the whole rest of the class is pretty enthusiastic about the opportunity to paint someone in their birthday suit; every chair but one in the typically half-empty classroom is filled. This is both fortunate and unfortunate for Seokmin. It’s fortunate because the likelihood that the life model will be glancing his way is significantly reduced by the existence of others to hold their attention. It’s unfortunate because the only remaining seat is the closest one to the platform upon which the model will be standing. He’ll certainly be getting an eyeful of whoever shows up, and he really hopes it’ll be an eyeful that’s no younger than 65.

Shortly after the class is greeted by their instructor and lectured on the professionalism expected of them in the presence of a life model, the model in question steps onto the scene. Seokmin’s heart sinks immediately, because everything he sees is wrong, wrong, wrong.

It’s a man, undoubtedly young. He can’t be much older than Seokmin himself, and to Seokmin’s indescribable woe, he’s good-looking. Unreasonably good-looking. Unfairly and frankly offensively good-looking. So good-looking Seokmin’s salivary glands may or may not be producing beyond their quota. _I don’t drool_ , he reminds himself as his eyes not-so-accidentally flit up to the guys lips, full and almost pouty as they sit in a neutral line. Seokmin can’t help but keep trailing up to get a glimpse of the rest of his face, eyes sharp and shiny just behind the tapering edges of a fringe of blonde hair parted down the middle. Seokmin realizes with a gulp that his own eyes are being looked into as well, but he’s inexplicably unable to shift his gaze away in very obvious embarrassment, so he just maintains a vaguely intense staring contest with the model until the teacher speaks again.

“This is Soonyoung, our model for today,” she says brightly, and it occurs to Seokmin right then and there that Soonyoung is an exceedingly wonderful name. “Let’s thank him for coming out to do this.”

“Thank you, Soonyoung,” Seokmin mumbles alongside the rest of the class, and he likes the way the name feels coming off his tongue, almost wants to say it again. He’s still staring when Soonyoung’s mouth splits out of its pretty resting shape and into a wide and toothy grin, brighter than fifteen suns rolled into one, eyes crinkling endearingly. Seokmin almost groans aloud because it just isn’t _fair_ , and before he can mull over the injustice for too long, Soonyoung’s doffing his robe.

The robe is barely on the floor for a second and it is glaringly obvious to Seokmin that all men are not created equal. He gulps again, hard, trying not to let his eyes see too much even if he knows he’ll need to look to paint anyway. There’s way too much going on at once for him to focus on picking up the brush. The strong slope of his shoulders, the broad fill of his chest, the toned muscle standing out distractingly from underneath smooth skin. Most commanding of all are his thighs, clearly handcrafted by gods who had a lot of time to devote to the specific task of making these two legs and nothing else, and Seokmin really has to close his eyes to ground himself, swallowing a few times deliberately just to make sure he can say Hansol wasn’t _completely_ right.

After a substantial pause during which he wonders how hard it would be to force yourself into dying by sheer willpower, he finally wraps his hand around the brush and dips it hesitantly into the paint, then draws it in a sweeping curve across the canvas to get started.

Except he was too distracted to dip his brush into the color he’d intended to use, so now there’s an enormous blue streak across his canvas that he can’t be bothered to cover up. He doesn’t know why he even had blue on his palette in the first place, and now he’s just realized that he’s forgotten to sketch first to give him a rough idea of how things need to be, so he’s pretty much fucked for the entire hour, and everyone sitting behind him can probably see that. But he did take one acting class in high school, and if he learned one thing in that class, it was “Whenever you fuck up, act like you didn’t.” With the grating voice of his high school drama teacher ringing in his ears, he mixes a little white into some of the blue and draws his brush over the surface again.

Seokmin’s finished one leg when he really starts to regret foregoing the sketch, because no sketch means all he can do is look at Soonyoung’s body again and again and again to make sure he gets the details right. Half of him wants to just give up and say screw the details, maybe even somehow turn the one leg he has painted into a basket of apples or a vase of flowers and forfeit the good opinion of his teacher and peers, but the other half of him wants to be able to do justice to such a good body even if it means having to lay eyes on it over and over and over again and wish for instant death.

When he’s just about finished, he’s surprised to say he’s pretty happy with how it looks. It’s no photograph or anything—after all, it is painted in shades of blue—but he can admit it’s pretty immediately recognizable as Soonyoung. Everything is there, exactly where it should be, even the dick that Seokmin really tried his best not to look at too closely. Objectively speaking, it might be one of the best things he’s ever painted, which pisses him off, because he can’t just hang a picture of a guy he doesn’t know completely in the buff on his dorm wall, schlong out for every guest to see, but he also doesn’t want his best work to gather dust in the corner.

“Wow,” his instructor whistles, approaching as Seokmin internally laments over this dilemma. “Seokmin, this is really nice. I’m impressed.” She eyes it up and down carefully, and just when he thinks she’s about to revoke her praise, a smile springs to her face. “I like your choice to use blue. It really captured his spirit well.” Seokmin thinks the word _choice_ is a little more generous than what he would have used, but he decides not to challenge it, only nodding in thanks. “Soonyoung,” she calls suddenly, and Seokmin swallows instinctively, choking back anything that could possibly become drool before it has the chance to do so.

Soonyoung walks over quickly at the sound of his name, a curious smile stretching across his face. He’s already put his clothes back on, distractingly well-fitting black pants and a shirt matching a shade of blue Seokmin used in his painting. Seokmin has never been such a fan of the color blue in his life. “Wow,” he gasps, beaming, and his voice is really something. Seokmin tries not to think about how good his name might sound in it. “I look so good!”

 _Hell yeah, you do,_ Seokmin almost agrees, saving himself from embarrassment at the last moment by forcing a chuckle. Without warning, Soonyoung leans in to take a closer look, face immediately beside Seokmin’s and somehow even more dazzling up close. “Yep, that’s my dick,” he muses, scrutinizing the portrait intently. He turns a wide grin to Seokmin without backing up an inch. “You’re good,” he says, and there’s no danger of drooling anymore because Seokmin’s mouth is suddenly so, so ungodly _dry_. He tries to lick his lips in the least conspicuous manner possible so he can offer his thanks, but Soonyoung’s retreated and fled before he’s even started to wet them. Seokmin takes the portrait back to the dorm after class and leans it against his desk, a bittersweet reminder of the beautiful man he’ll never see again.

At least, that’s what it _should_ have been, but Seokmin _does_ see him again, not even a week later. It’s the following Monday and he’s minding his own business walking to class when he catches a pair of very well-toned legs biking his way in distractingly short shorts. As his eyes graze over the flawless thighs, it occurs to him that something about them is alarmingly familiar, and he drags his gaze up to find that they were connected to Soonyoung the entire time. “You!” he shouts without thinking, and it’s at this moment that he wishes more than anything he’d kicked that yelling habit in high school.

He doesn’t know why he wasn’t expecting Soonyoung to stop or look at him after being so blatantly howled at, but he’s certainly thrown for a loop when he does both, bringing his bike to a very quick halt and laying his eyes on Seokmin immediately. Seokmin has to gulp because the way the wind pushed back his hair is completely unfair and so is the way his thighs and arms are exposed and glistening with sweat.

“Do I know you from somewhere?” Soonyoung asks a little hesitantly, lips sitting neutral in that same gorgeous way they had been when Seokmin first saw them. He kicks his brain into overdrive trying to come up with a good reason for screaming at Soonyoung.

“Huh?” is all he’s able to come up with, and Soonyoung’s eyes flicker at the sound of the syllable, lips pressing together by just enough for Seokmin to pay attention to it.

“I didn’t think I knew you when you stopped me, but now you look kind of familiar.” He narrows his eyes, leaning forward slightly, then snaps them wide open without warning. “Wait, you were yelling at _me_ , right?”

“I was!” Seokmin assures him quickly and is met with a mighty sigh of relief. “I just, uh,” he starts trying to explain, but it’s hard to explain why he called out to him when he didn’t even mean to. “I was, uh… You were… Painting class?”

“Oh yeah!” He snaps his fingers, breaking into a cheesy grin. Seokmin can’t breathe. “I thought I knew you from somewhere.” He just stands there smiling contentedly for a few seconds, but eventually, he remembers that he is not riding his bike like he should be. “Did you need something?” Seokmin’s lips have always moved faster than his brain, and today is no exception.

“So I told him I wanted a private session,” Seokmin wails to Hansol the next day, alerting half of the student union to his predicament. He takes a sizable bite of his burrito and swallows it grumpily as Hansol and Mingyu cackle in perfect harmony, tears welling at the corners of their eyes.

“Of _course_ you fucking did,” Mingyu breathes, wiping away the drops sliding down his face. “God, Seokmin. You have no grace.”

“What an A-1 creep move, dude. He’s probably contacting the police, like, right now,” Hansol snorts. “You better transfer schools.”

“But he said _yes_ , though,” Seokmin groans, and Mingyu and Hansol both choke on air.

“You’re shitting me,” Mingyu whispers. “He said _yes?_ What the hell?”

“I don’t know!”

“Why are you so upset?” Hansol nearly hisses. “You should be thankful he didn’t get mad creeped out like literally anybody else should have.”

“Because I don’t actually want a private session, you dumbass.” Seokmin freezes, a mouthful of burrito trapped between his lips. “Oh my god. What if I start painting him and he looks at me?” He gulps hard. He can already feel those shimmery eyes on him while he makes his weird painting face, and it’s not a pleasant sensation. “Oh my god,” he repeats, clutching his head in his hands. “I can’t do this. I have to cancel. I don’t even like painting. What the fuck.”

“Jesus, Seokmin,” Hansol grouses, “you need to _chillax_.”

“You need to stop using that word,” he counters. “It’s 2018.”

“Whoa, okay,” Hansol says, raising his palms defensively. “No need to hate on my hip lingo just because you can’t handle yourself around sexy men.” He slaps his palms back down on the table for impact, and a girl walking by almost drops her sandwich. “Besides, you can’t cancel on him when it was your idea. Your painting face isn’t even that weird.”

“He’s seen it in pictures, Hansol,” Mingyu sighs. “Lying is no use.” Seokmin lets his forehead smack on the tabletop. He doesn’t care how many people turn to stare.

Later that evening, he receives a text from Soonyoung asking when exactly they’ll be having their private session, and he hates that his heart skips more than just one beat when he reads the message. Seokmin picks this coming Saturday because his roommate is going home for the weekend and he figures it’ll be best to rip the bandage off as soon as possible, and after that’s been decided, he doesn’t hear from Soonyoung again until ten minutes before he’s supposed to show up.

 _On my way!! :^)_ the message reads, and Seokmin has to slap the smile off his own face. It’s unfair how cute he finds it that Soonyoung took the time to give the emoticon a pointy nose, and it only makes him more nervous that Soonyoung is about to be physically at his dorm and looking just as handsome as Seokmin knows he will.

A knock on the door is heard at their agreed meeting time exactly, as if Soonyoung had already been there but was waiting to be perfectly on time. Seokmin is too nervous to know what he would think if that was actually the case, so he just opens the door and ushers Soonyoung inside. He’s wearing blue again, and Jesus, that’s a wonderful hue.

“Hi,” Soonyoung beams, shuffling his shoes off. Seokmin looks to the motion instinctively, and as his eyes drop from Soonyoung’s face to his feet, he doesn’t fail to notice the absurd tightness of his pants or the wonders they’re working for his thighs. “Where should I go?” he asks. Seokmin is too unprepared for the question to do anything but wave his hand and mutter something noncommittal, so he just marches to the center of the room while Seokmin breaks out the easel he never thought he would need and prepares his paints.

“How do you want me?” is the next question Soonyoung asks, and Seokmin really isn’t ready for a question so ambiguous and suggestive; just the sound of the words is enough to knock the wind out of him. ‘A lot of ways’ is the answer. As he tries to sift through all of the things he _could_ say to find the thing he _should_ say, he hazards a glance up at Soonyoung. He nearly has a heart attack when he sees that he’s already removed his shirt and is getting to work unbuttoning his pants.

“ _You don’t need to take your clothes off_ ,” Seokmin says as quickly as he can get his tongue to shape the words, almost shrieking in his alarm. Soonyoung freezes at the sudden overload of noise, snapping his head over to look at Seokmin with wide eyes.

“I’m sorry?” His hands are frozen right at the hem of his pants, fingertips edging dangerously near the zipper, and Seokmin is thankful beyond power of speech that he looked up before any further disrobing. It’s one thing to see such a specimen naked once, but to see it twice is just the universe bullying him.

“It’s okay,” Seokmin breathes, placing a hand over his heart to calm down its racing. Half of it is the surprise at seeing that chest again, and half of it is the excitement at almost seeing the rest. An uncomfortably warm blush creeps across his cheeks as he continues talking, and he tries and fails to pretend that Soonyoung isn’t noticing it. “I mean, I didn’t say _not_ to, and last time you were, uh,” he gulps, “naked.” His lips are dryer than they need to be, but now could not be a less appropriate time to wet them. “Like, you don’t, uh, have to put your shirt back on or anything, but I mean, like, right now is… You’re fine. Like, super fine.” He recognizes that the last part was completely unnecessary, but unfortunately, he can’t unsay it.

“Do you even want to paint me?” Soonyoung asks with a sudden pout, and _god_ is he cute. Seokmin wishes he could capture on canvas the way his lip juts out endearingly, the way his eyes narrow and drop at the same time. The way those eyes are fixed on him so intently, like he’s asked a question and is waiting for an answer. Maybe that’s because he has. And Seokmin still has yet to answer. Shit.

“What, uh, gives you that idea?” he asks, and to his own ears, it sounds more like ‘you caught me’ than anything else.

“I don’t know,” Soonyoung admits, tilting his head to the side. “You just don’t have that same look on your face as you did the other time.” He flattens his mouth into a line. “You kinda look like you want me to leave.”

“It’s just that you’re so hot,” is not the sentence Seokmin intends to set free, but for some reason, it’s what hits his own ears. He claps a hand over his mouth at sonic speed, but it doesn’t do any good once the words have already escaped. Soonyoung does nothing but raise his eyebrows and part his lips slightly in surprise, but it doesn’t seem like he’s about to say anything. A few moments of very tense silence pass before Seokmin adds, “You should probably leave.”

“Hold on just a second,” Soonyoung says, crossing his arms in front of his chest. He sure looks good like that. It’s unfair. “I don’t want to leave.”

“But this is _my_ home.”

“You called me hot.”

“I don’t want to talk about this,” Seokmin wheezes, gradually reddening, then rises from his chair to usher Soonyoung out the door, “so if you would please—”

“I want to talk about it.” Soonyoung’s grip on his wrist is strong. He’s got good hands. Seokmin’s trying not to think about where else he’d like to have them.

“I really don’t,” he counters, avoiding eye contact.

“I think you’re cute,” Soonyoung asserts plainly. When Seokmin manages to drag his eyes back up, he finds him slightly smiling and just a little pink.

“Excuse me?”

“Can I kiss you?” Answering questions with questions has never been so appealing.

“I changed my mind. We actually should talk about this.”

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” Soonyoung counters with a smirk. “I want to kiss you.”

“I think not talking about it probably isn’t a good idea.”

“I thought nude modeling wouldn’t be a good idea.” Seokmin hums for just a moment, trying to formulate a response, but Soonyoung seizes the opportunity and dives right in.

His lips are soft and plump, and he tastes like mango iced tea. Seokmin manages to catch one between his teeth and nibble gently, eliciting a breathy chuckle from Soonyoung that dusts against his hot cheeks, doing nothing to cool them down. His hands are only too eager to find spots to hold on those arms, too, feeling the lean stretches of muscle under the skin and the way they tense and relax with each movement. Before he realizes it, Soonyoung’s got him pressed up against the wall, hands sliding up his back, and Seokmin thinks that this is what art feels like. He’s never been more thankful to be enrolled in that art class at the community center.

“So we’re gonna act like this didn’t happen,” Soonyoung breathes when they finally tear themselves apart. “I’m gonna go home and call you and ask you on a date, and we’re going to pretend like that’s the first thing on the timeline.”

“Whatever you say,” Seokmin says, dazed. He’s already thinking about the field day Hansol is going to have when he inevitably hears about this. Soonyoung chuckles through his nose, patting Seokmin on the stomach gently.

“Okay,” he says, backing toward the door. “I’m leaving now. And I’ll call you in, like, ten minutes. Answer the phone.” He points a finger accusingly. “Promise.” Seokmin can’t bring himself to do anything but nod mechanically, head testing the limits of its connection to his neck. He watches Soonyoung laugh and take the final step outside, the reality of what’s occurred only sinking in once he lays eyes on the floor.

The shirt. Soonyoung’s shirt. It’s still there, a rumpled pile on the rug, a beautiful blue hill decorating the bland landscape. He stares at it for a long time, admiring the way the color stands out against the brown carpet with more of an artist’s eye than he’d ever thought himself to have. It’s bold and captivating even if it is just a t-shirt; he can’t take his eyes off of it, and he doesn’t really want to, either. It does need to be picked up, though, so he edges himself toward it with aching slowness, trying to preserve the casual art created by the discarded article of the departed model if only for one more second before the room goes back to being nicely kept. It’s a wonder the kind of hold a garment can have on a person.

Just as he scoops it up from the floor, his phone rings. He keeps his eyes on the ball of fabric clutched in his hand as he answers the call, a smile drawing across his features. God, does he love the color blue.

**Author's Note:**

> WOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO i'm so glad i finally got to write some soonseok because i truly love these two and the tag is unfairly dry... i really hope you enjoyed this! i was sweeping at work one time and the idea came to me, so i had to bring it to life. as always, feedback is greatly appreciated, and thank you so much for reading! :^)


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